Doing this took major work, in a cold rain: Jane knows what she’s doing on planting things. I usually handle destruction, but settled for making some plant frames we ordered actually work. They’re a clever idea, a scrollwork shell to provide trellis for vines over the downspouts from the gutter. The problem is, they were designed to be screwed to the wall and we have brick. So I Rube-Goldberged a wire connection for each section and got 2 of them done. Jane, meanwhile, was cold, tired, and wet, and we planted the hydrangea, which had taken the total revision of a bed, manure, compost, mulch and weedcloth (but it looks good)—leaving several other plants for Another Day, because we were both tired, wet, and cold. Jane says it’s a sample of gardening on the Wet Side of the Cascades. It’s hard to get me to say I’m tired of cold weather, but it’s so cold the koi won’t move about…it’s not just the eagle, which we haven’t seen since the bridge framework went across. There’s just no warmth to be had, and the nights are in the 40’s or low 40’s. Koi aren’t very active until 58 degrees, and we aren’t always hitting that as a high.
Brrr. I admit it. Brr.
—Wet Side of the Cascades— Wait a minute, I thought that was the west side – Seattle… OK, scurry off to Wikipedia (Washington State and Spokane articles). Yep, you just miss being semi-arid… So you are having atypical weather today. Summer will be here in three days, although even in July-August your average temp is just 68 – so yeah, brr!
Interesting articles, by the way. How many of us knew this: “Spokane is also known as the city that founded Father’s Day, a holiday celebrating fatherhood every year in the month of June.”
Sounds like a nice place to visit, even if it is a bit of a drive from Vancouver BC.
I grew up on the wet side. Renton and Kent, just south of Seattle. And this spring has been much more typical of that side of the Cascades. I think I learned to swear trying to shove a wheelbarrow through the mud of mid summer. (The true joys of horse ownership!)
There’s nothing quite like drizzle to just put you out of the mood. I don’t like hot hot, either, but at least if it’s dry you can go out in the morning and get stuff done before it’s too hot.
And where’s the rule that the minute you start to spread newspapers and weed cloth, the wind comes up? 😀
We’re also the home of Bing Crosby, we have a white-water river running through town (if you visit, book a dinner on the falls)—we have one of the region’s only open-air ice-skating rinks; we’ve hosted figure skating Nationals and Skate America; pretty major shows like Walking With Dinosaurs, The Lion King, etc, stop here for at least a night, we have skiing within an easy drive; we have an in-town rock climbing park, and an all city 9-mile run—lots and lots to keep you busy here.
I’ll let you have some of our heat. 103 at 5pm today with a tornado watch all evening for the Osage.
That’s brutal. Hot AND humid, and with with the storm coming. Wish we could ship you a roomful of 40 degree air.
We are having bouncy weather. Hot, cool, hot, cool. And that doesn’t count the flooding of course. I like the cool. I don’t have any AC right now and my office is horrid once it warms up.
BRRR, I’d be in a jacket and aggravated at cold hands while gardening. You two take the cake, out there with it cold and wet and having fun(?) in the garden. That’s great, though.
Above 100 or even 104 for days here, 80’s in the evenings, dipping into the 70’s (supposedly) late at night. No rain for months.
The weathermen (local and national weather service) claim we will finally have a real chance of rain from Tuesday through the end of next week. When it rains, I want to stand outside and feel the rain on me, it’s been so long.
Today when I got home, I moved the tomato plants into the sun, on advice from a gardener friend, who said they *need* sun to bear tomatoes. She thinks they won’t bear because it’s too late. Friends in other climates say it’s not yet too late. I’m nervous the plants will get so much sun they’ll keel over. I’m babying them. I want tomatoes, dang it! But this is my first time, so anything at all is experience, experimenting, learning. I’m enjoying it, partly because I’m keeping that attitude.
Uh, and I discovered one reason why the green onions haven’t grown much. It seems Goober likes to nibble on ’em. I didn’t know he liked chives. Well, at this point, he’s welcome to nibble. They’re still making a go of it, but I don’t think I’ll get anything from ’em really.
I have hopes for next year with a new batch of veggie plants, either way.
Hmm, I think the hydrangeas I got need to be put in the ground before they grow much more.
I guess I inherited a little farming/gardening skill after all. I had no idea. 🙂
Wow…I’d be doing a little rain dance myself! I’m such a fair weather gardener. Ideally, it would be dry and preferably in the 60s, maybe 70s while I’m out there, then a nice hard rain at least once a week so if (when)I forget to water the plants won’t die! 😀
I don’t know squat about tomatoes other than that home grown and ripened are so much better than store bought! We had a lovely veggie garden on our acreage when I was growing up, but my grandmother, who lived in a trailer behind our house, hoarded the secrets of her tomato plants.
I’ve really thought about a veggie garden, but in order to protect it from birds, we’d have to put up netting, or something and that would kinda ruin the ambiance we’re creating. It’d be kinda funny to have this oversized lot and wind up doing apartment style balcony garden! 😀
Tomatoes want decent drainage, because they’ll split their skins if overwatered, but if you can keep it damp 5 days a week and dry two days a week, they’ll do pretty well. They don’t mind a clay soil.
Things that bear like crazy: tomatoes, summer squash, green beans. A successful planting means that all the visitors to your house get grocery bags of produce to take home. My neighbor once planted 20 tomatoes in a backyard garden: it was downright funny. 20 tomato plants would supply a small village.
It’s supposed to be 80 by Wednesday. Summer is finally coming, or so it is rumored.
I want to finish painting at least some of the house trim this weekend, so of course it looks like it’s threatening rain. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times it actually rained off-season, so I’m not really concerned, but the threat is there and annoying.
We’ll share some heat with you — here in the Panhandle we’ve had 100+ highs for over two weeks — as high as 107 (yesterday). Right now it’s 98 with 13% humidity, but the predicted high is 106. We’ve had only 1 inch of rain since January. Seems so unfair with all the flooding going on elsewhere.
CJ said: “So I Rube-Goldberged a wire connection for each section and got 2 of them done…”
…Which made me think of this nifty gadget: http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=10437&cat=2,2260,33144,10437
(Lee Vally Tools are totally cool!)
Brilliant: I think they’re going to get an order!
Likewise. That looks like it could work for my brick too. Not sure, but it’s worth a try, and better than having someone come out and try to drill a bolt hole in my brick, at expen$ive co$ts. Thanks, Ruadhan. Bookmarking that site.
I must say, here on the New England sea coast today, we are having absolutely perfect June weather (perhaps close to a first this month): dry air and sunny, with a light breeze and I guess temperatures in the 70’s. My day lillies just started blooming today — this feels early but may not be. It has been an astounding year for roses due to very little winter kill, at least in my garden. I’m certain the weather will change by tomorrow or so, but for the moment… ahhhh.
Actually, the wet side of the Cascades has had several 70F+ days already. In fact the sarassa goldfish were spawning up a storm last weekend in the parrotfeather. However, I’ve not gotten my own 6 potted hydrangeas into the ground yet! I did get a bunch of lilacs, deciduous azaleas (the luscious orange sherbet color), katsura and Japanese maple trees in the ground before carpal tunnel surgery. Now I have to be ‘good’ for several weeks, unless I can do a better job of teaching ‘directed digging’ to my Siberian huskies! Adak is willing but Jovi is less interested unless a mole tunnel in involved.
lol! I hope the surgery went well, and good luck, too, to those lilacs and azaleas and such!
What types of crops are you considering that require bird protection? I don’t know anyone over here in the west (greater Seattle) who has to cover their veggies. Fruit crops are another issue (sigh). I’ve been doing greens/beans/snow peas/cucumbers/herbs in my planter boxes up on my deck while I work up the energy to put in raised beds in the north pasture. The cottontail bunnies (a bigger issue that birds) don’t climb the steps to raid my planters~! I can’t wait for the snow pea crop to start coming on! I do admit that although I love tomatoes, I don’t grow them as they can contribute to inflammatory problems for those of us fighting that battle.
Yep—alas, for me and for Jane, potatoes, tomatoes, paprika, and onions are all off the menu. The hardest is potatoes. We fall off that wagon now and again. But I’m a really good Italian cook—and no tomatoes comes hard, too.